The Endless Forest (50 page)

And that was an odd thing. It meant that Ma hadn’t invited them into the parlor, a breach of what Ma called etiquette that was hard to credit. She gave even the smelliest trapper a better welcome, offered him food and drink and a bath, if he wanted one. Anyone who took the bath was welcome to come eat in the house and otherwise she sent out a plate.

The trappers mostly didn’t take her up on the bath, because they
sewed their clothes on for the season and wouldn’t be bothered. But the point, Birdie told herself, was that Ma would let a trapper eat at her table if he was willing to take a bath, and there stood Jemima in fine clothes and Ma wouldn’t let her over the door swell.

Jemima had come to Paradise with her coach and her servants and her trunks of clothes (four of them, Anje LeBlanc had reported, with shiny brass fittings) and she had turned everything upside down and inside out. Not all of that was bad. Daniel and Martha eloping was a very good thing; everybody seemed to be agreed on that much. To Birdie it was exciting and irritating at the same time; she hoped nobody had the idea that since they got married in Johnstown they could just do without a wedding party.

Birdie thought this through while she tiptoed through the hall and up the stairs to her own room, where she could stand at the window and hear every word spoken on the front porch.

It seemed like Jemima was doing all the talking, but if she was mad, she was holding her temper in check. Her voice was even and reasonable-sounding, but when she paused she never got more than a couple of words in reply, and all of them from Da, who was good at getting his point across with nothing but a sharp look.

Now Mr. Focht was talking, a man like a swollen keg ready to burst at the seams. His hair standing out straight and stiff from his ears and nose and eyebrows and even from his knuckles, like porcupine quills. Asking about legal documents and court hearings and other things that Birdie didn’t understand, and could not even remember long enough to write down in her notebook.

Jemima asked better questions. She wanted to know about Callie, where she was living since the flood and how was it that the Bonners took it upon themselves to hide her own stepdaughter from her; could he explain that? Because it didn’t seem right. And there was a rumor in the village that Daniel and Martha had gone off together. Did they have anything to do with that?

“Our Daniel is a man grown,” Da said finally. “We don’t keep him on a leash.”

“I have a right to know where my daughters are,” Jemima said again, her voice a little strained now.

“Of course you do,” Da said. “You’ve always had that right. When you
walked off and left them with nothing and no way to fend for themselves, for example. Surely you must remember the day you abandoned those girls you’re wanting to see so bad. Or have I got that wrong?”

“Don’t answer that,” Mr. Focht said.

Birdie would have liked to see her ma’s face. She wanted some idea of how she was taking all this.

“We’ll go, then,” Jemima said stiffly. There was a long pause and she said, “The rumor is that Daniel and Martha have gone to Johnstown to be married. If that’s so—”

“Spare us your threats,” Ma said.

“On the contrary,” Jemima said. “I would be delighted.”

“T
ell it to me again,” Curiosity said.

They were sitting at Curiosity’s kitchen table over teacups. Elizabeth was weary to the bone but this conversation couldn’t wait, and so here she was.

“She is willing to go to court to force her hand,” Elizabeth said.

Curiosity let out a noisy breath. “I think she should go right ahead. She can stand there in front of God and man and explain herself. I for one would like to hear it.”

Elizabeth finished the last of her milky tea, and then spent a moment studying the dregs on the bottom of her cup. She said, “Curiosity, we haven’t talked about your story.”

She felt the older woman tensing ever so slightly.

“It must have been very difficult for you, I realize that. And I am thankful. Otherwise I would never have known the truth about myself.”

Curiosity’s head snapped toward her. “That story wan’t about
you
. That story was about me, and what a foolish, vainglorious thing I did. I caused your mama harm and your daddy too, and I am truly sorry for it.”

Elizabeth said, “You shouldn’t have withheld the letters, that’s true. But I think the outcome would have been the same.”

“Well,” Curiosity said. “You free to believe what you like. She was your mama, after all.”

She was irritated and ill at ease, and so Elizabeth put two opened letters on the table between them. Yellowed paper, darker along the edges where the pages had been folded for so many years. All the years of Elizabeth’s life.

“No,” Curiosity said. “Sixty years I been looking at those letters and I don’t care to look no more.”

“Nevertheless,” Elizabeth said. “I am leaving them here with you. If you can bring yourself to read them, you may find a way to come to peace with the past.”

The old woman looked up at her and her eyes were wet.

“You think so.” Not so much a question as a challenge.

“I do,” Elizabeth said. “Read them, and decide for yourself.”

“If you want me to know what’s in those letters, then you have got to read them to me. Read them aloud so’s I can hear her voice.”

Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, and then she picked up the first of the letters.

After a long time, when she was calm, Elizabeth reached across the table and covered Curiosity’s hand with her own.

L
ate that night Elizabeth lay sleepless beside Nathaniel, her thoughts dashing one way and then the other. Daniel, Martha, Curiosity, Ethan, Callie, Curiosity. Jemima. Curiosity. Curiosity.

Nathaniel rolled onto his side and said, “I can hear you thinking, Boots. Talk to me.”

“We’ve been talking all day,” she said, her voice wavering. “Do you think another conversation would help?”

He smiled sleepily. “I do. This is me you’re talking to, and nobody else listening in. No need to hold back.”

“I haven’t been holding anything back.”

“No?”

Elizabeth tried to gather her thoughts. “Do you mean about Curiosity?”

“I’d say the fact that you brought her name up so quick means something. That story she told, that’s not something you can hide away and forget you ever heard.”

Elizabeth recognized the wisdom in this, even if she wasn’t particularly eager to pursue the discussion.

“I think the thing that surprised me most was the way she looked at me when she had finished. She truly believed I would turn her away and never speak to her again.”

“Sixty years holding that story back, I don’t doubt she was worried. And maybe rightly so. Talking about what happened so long ago has raised ghosts, is all.”

“She’s thinking about my mother.”

“And Gabriel. Boots, do you think your mother was unhappy?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes and sent her mind back to her ten-year-old self, just Birdie’s age. That last good summer before the sudden illness that took her mother’s life. She had so many clear memories of those few months. Over the years her mother’s face had faded, but still Elizabeth had a sense of her expression. Always calm, often cheerful. A poor relation, Quaker, an odd American with strange ideas but still valued and respected in Aunt Merriweather’s household. She had been the voice of reason and logic tempered with kindness, and all the children had come to her in times of hurt and uncertainty. Never once had Elizabeth heard her mother complain, but she had often heard her laugh.

“I don’t think she was unhappy, but what do children really understand of adults?” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps she wept every night.”

“She had the chance to come back here, but she stayed where she was. I think that means something.”

“I’ve wondered about that too,” Elizabeth said. “What a shock it must have been when her husband showed up, wanting to claim his wife and daughter both and take us back to Paradise. I wonder if she felt anger or only sadness. I think the fact that she conceived Julian during that visit is evidence enough that she struggled with guilt and remorse.”

“If she had brought you back here right then, we would have grown up together.”

“That’s an odd idea,” Elizabeth said. “I wonder what would have become of us.”

They were quiet for a long minute and then Elizabeth realized that Nathaniel had drifted off to sleep. As if to say, where else could we possibly be, but together in this bed, with children and grandchildren sleeping soundly nearby. Because neither of them could imagine a life without the other in it.